China’s new (and first) aircraft
carrier isn’t fully operational yet. But whatever its ultimate naval
potency, we know that it does at least float! It’s currently in a mainland
dock for further dressing up and hosting of crew training before setting
sail.

We recall that the very idea of
China even acquiring an aircraft carrier, when originally floated by
Beijing, was not popular elsewhere. Hearts sank around the world, then
enamored with China’s declared policy of “peaceful rising.” Why would a
truly peaceful-rising country need an aircraft carrier?

The answer is that the Chinese
apparently want what the Americans have. It’s not that China is preparing
for war (as far as anyone knows) with the U.S. It’s simply behaving as any
rising power has throughout history. It now has serious money to throw
around, so why not have a serious military to throw around, too?

You could perhaps wish otherwise,
but then you’d be guilty of seriously wishful thinking, if not
self-delusion. So let’s sit at the feet of Harvard’s Joseph S. Nye, Jr.,
who explains how the world really turns – and how rising powers tend to
burn their money on arms – in his masterful and essential new book The
Future of Power (Public Affairs Press).

It goes like this: Even under the
inward-looking Mao Zedong, China marshaled a large army and of course had
a tranche of nuclear weapons. His successor Deng Xiaoping kept China’s
focus on economic modernization and “warned his compatriots to eschew
external adventures that might jeopardize this internal development,” as
Nye writes. Even so, the People’s Liberation Army always was at the top
table: China’s leaders were no Gandhi-pacifists decked out in Nehru
jackets.

The former dean of Harvard’s
Kennedy School of Government rightly credits the “peaceful rising”
advertising to current China President Hu Jintao, who stylistically
preferred what might be called a foreign-relations approach of “soft
power.” This clever term was practically invented by Nye and is the exact
title of his previous book, a bestseller. “By accompanying the rise of its
hard power with efforts to make itself more attractive,” he writes, “China
aimed to reduce the fear and tendencies that might otherwise grow among
its neighbors.”

That worked quite well for a time
but two things served to undermine it. One was China’s new feistiness in
seeming to assert every single territorial claim it has in the Pacific
against its neighbors. That sent off alarm bells throughout the region.
Countries, such as Malaysia and Vietnam, which in the past had little
appetite for openly hooking up with the U.S. were suddenly inviting Uncle
Sam to dinner. Nye understands their alarm: “Over-confidence in power
assessment (combined with insecurity in domestic affairs) led to a more
assertive Chinese foreign policy behavior in the latter part of 2009.”

The Harvard professor, who has
held positions in both the U.S. State and Defense Department, takes the
view that China has to be careful not to lose its sense of balance, scare
its neighbors half to death and play into the hands of those in the West
who are convinced that military conflict with China is inevitable. A
consensus over that would trigger a U.S. military buildup of potential
Cold War dimensions. Even so, Nye, and many others, worry whether China is
“beginning to deviate from the smart strategy of a rising power and
violating the wisdom of Deng, who advised that China should proceed
cautiously and skillfully keep a low profile’.”

That was certainly good advice
for China when Deng was alive. But to hope that China will continue to
low-key it, especially on the naval front, when the United States
preeminent Seventh Fleet continues to bob in Pacific waters, is not
realistic. If early on the U.S. had taken the initiative to lower its own
naval profile in the Asia-Pacific, maybe a strategic bargain might have
been struck. But with its treaty commitments to Japan and South Korea –
and a bunch of other stuff – the U.S. was never going to do that. China
wants to do its own thing, anyhow.

Thus, the Chinese naval buildup –
and it is significant – is less alarming than logical. After all,
Beijing’s interests sometimes do conflict with ours. For instance, it
views both Taiwan and Tibet as integral parts of core China, not as
aggressive acquisitions – potential or actual. The central government will
appear to lack credibility if it has no muscle. That’s the way many
Chinese look at it.

Thus, some measure of tension –
rising, falling, whatever – is inevitable. But war is not. Smart
diplomacy on both sides can work wonders. That’s why Nye’s book The Future
of Power is such pertinent reading. He explains, clearly and so very
knowledgably, why soft power can be more powerful and effective than the
harder kind. Elites on both sides of the Pacific should make reading this
smart book a must read if they really are mutually committed to a peaceful
rising.